So it is all over. Cian O'Connor has opted - as is his right - not to appeal the decision of the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) to strip him of Olympic gold. The loss of Ireland's sole medal from the Athens games has been confirmed. And de facto, key questions arising from the truly extraordinary events that followed the showjumper's victory appear likely to remain unanswered.
All the parties involved seem content to let matters rest. Mr O'Connor starts a three-month ban from competition on Monday and will be eligible for selection for the Irish team that will compete in the Dublin Horse Show in August. He says he has been vindicated by the finding of the FEI's judicial committee that he did not deliberately attempt to enhance the performance of his Olympic mount, Waterford Crystal. Despite advice that an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport might have allowed him to retain his medal, he has opted to accept the FEI's findings "in the best interests of the sport and to avoid further controversy".
Equestrian Federation of Ireland (EFI) president Avril Doyle is - in her own words - glad that the sport can draw a line under this "sorry episode". And, at international level, the FEI is unlikely to differ given that the public spotlight will be lifted from its procedures relating to doping. These have been shown to be sorely deficient. There is a sense that ranks are being closed. As Olympic Council of Ireland president Pat Hickey pointed out, the affair has damaged equestrianism and the Irish thoroughbred industry and "everyone in the sport will be happy to see it closed up and finished".
We know at this stage that two drugs intended primarily for human use were found in a urine sample taken from Waterford Crystal in Athens. We know that Mr O'Connor has always maintained that the drugs were administered for therapeutic purposes long before the Olympics. We know too that Mr O'Connor requested confirmatory analysis of Waterford Crystal's B sample and that that sample was stolen in the driveway of the Horseracing Forensic Laboratory in Cambridgeshire last October. And we know that files relating to another O'Connor horse, ABC Landliebe, which tested positive for sedatives in Rome at the end of May last year, were subsequently taken in an apparent break-in at the EFI offices in Co Kildare. From all of this we are left with many questions, rather fewer answers and little reason to believe this situation will change.
These events have been chronicled internationally as another example of the unfortunate nexus between drugs and sport. Once again, the latter is the real loser.